Okay, the question is flippant, but I'm seriously frustrated. I followed the instructions from www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml from chroot. I don't understand where everything was installed. It installs a kernel, but can never find it.

The advice to go back and reinstall the kernel is just too much to take after spending so much time building everything. Perhaps the instructions should say something like, "If this is the first time you have installed Gentoo, use genkernel!" or whatever it's called.

I now have files mounted under /mnt/gentoo that I cannot unmount using umount outside or inside chroot.

I realize that I was not up to the challenge, but I want something beyond Ubuntu. I want up-to-date software with stability.

Maybe I should go back to Fedora or try a BSD derivative. (Is that flame bait?)_________________Still haven't figured out Gentoo and don't think I ever will.

Even I felt why did they not recommend genkernel first. But the whole idea of Gentoo handbook is doing things the generic way and not showing too much gentoo specific stuff in the handbook, I guess. Its more likely that a new user might be familiar with generic kernel building rather than genkernel even though genkernel may be easier. Apart from the kernel building one needs to know more basics of Linux computing in general in Terminal when you want to use Gentoo. It would be tough for people to graduate directly from ubuntu way of doing things. After you undergo the process of installing successfully once you most likely will have smooth sailing in Gentoo. I never imagined Gentoo to be this smooth after the turbulent period of installing._________________LENOVO Y580 FHD Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40GHz × 8 |660M GTX NVIDIA | 16GB SanDisk SSD

Gentoo can also be used in a variety of ways. I operate a router (PowerEdge 1750) on Gentoo. I'm currently compiling Gentoo on a WD MyBook Live 3TB.

Gentoo can be made incredibly small for embedded use. It can be customized to work on different architectures._________________Router(Nokia IP390,2GB RAM,160GB HDD,8xGigE ports,pfSense) | MyDT(Xeon X3470@3.4GHz,32GB RAM,6x2TB R5,GTX560Ti,2xLG BD-RE,Win10Pro)
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Gentoo is different then other distro's. It has it's good and bad. When I first started
using Gentoo, it took 4 tries before I got it up and ruling. Now, I've learned alot
able linux and how Gentoo works. I prefer the quick guide and it gets me to a working state.
Then I install the other stuff ..._________________General Blood ..

I don't understand where everything was installed. It installs a kernel, but can never find it.

Freshly built kernel should be located at /usr/src/linux/arch/x86_64/boot/ directory and named as bzImage.
You need to copy bzImage to your top level /boot directory and rename it as kernel-X.XX.X-gentoo. Here X.XX.X should match your kernel source version.

Quote:

Perhaps the instructions should say something like, "If this is the first time you have installed Gentoo, use genkernel!" or whatever it's called.

Using genkernel is the simplest way but you will get a bloated kernel that contains a lot of modules that you no need at all. You can use it to getting started.
Another one option that did not mentioned in handbook is "make localmodconfig". It analyzed lsmod output and disables modules that does not need for your hardware. As result you getting .config file and can run "make && make modules_install". The kernel built this way is more lightweight at faster than built by genkernel.

Quote:

The advice to go back and reinstall the kernel is just too much to take after spending so much time building everything

Kernel rebuild is much more faster than first build, because "make" does not rebuilds all the kernel but the changed options only.

I realize that I was not up to the challenge, but I want something beyond Ubuntu. I want up-to-date software with stability.

I got it working first time and broke it and started again a handful of times, then did it again on my ssd I think it took me 3 or 4 days in all. It is frustrating but If you perseveer you'll get it eventually and it is worth it for the learning experience alone. That and it's a great distro with some amazing tools.

If you decide to stick with it and if you start again from scratch, here's a video tutorial which I found very helpful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJwwcw56d6c and of course you have the handbook as a reference.

To the OP, as of this writing, there are over 50 thousand questions posted in the Installing Gentoo section of the forum, garnering nearly 300 thousand replies. Clearly, the Gentoo install process is not trouble free for a lot of people and, just as clearly, a lot of help has been provided when questions are asked. Why aren't any of those questions from you?

By the way, my first install took more than two days. (It was on a 90MHz Pentium I, though, so compile times were looong.)

- John_________________I can confirm that I have received between 0 and 499 National Security Letters.

I wish Stage3s came with a standard kernel .config file - if Ubuntu can build a standard kernel,
I don't see why Gentoo can't. It would give people a starting point when building a new system,
and they could use it as a base when building a kernel that fitted their system.

I don't really understand the prejudice against genkernel, either - I've always used it, via
a shell script to set up the options, and I've found it pretty convenient. I'm not sure it will
produce a system without an initramfs, but initramfs is getting to be a requirement anyway.

Me neither. I use the default config for the first install. It always boots. Once I boot into the new Gentoo system, I run genkernel --menuconfig and cut out all the hardware and file systems I don't have.
If I've screwed up, the original kernel is there until I verify the new leaner system and delete the old one. There seems to be some macho pleasure to building a kernel then copying and and renaming it, while, of course, never making a typing error. Maybe to some people "genkernel" means always using the default kernel instead of an automated tool to build whatever you want.

Not sure about macho comment. For me kernel is the most important part of my Linux system and I do not hesitate to dedicate good deal of time to configuration. Never ever had a genkernel, I admit I tried once (I think it was 2008 when installer came out), but it errored out somehow and I lost interest._________________Please learn how to denote units correctly!

Freshly built kernel should be located at /usr/src/linux/arch/x86_64/boot/ directory and named as bzImage.
You need to copy bzImage to your top level /boot directory and rename it as kernel-X.XX.X-gentoo. Here X.XX.X should match your kernel source version.

I had to walk away from it and then come back. I recall the documentation saying something about bzImage. I personally don't know why it isn't built with the name kernel-X.XX.X-gentoo in the first place.[/glsa]

I'm concerned that my system thinks that it is a DOS executable; however, grub does think it's a kernel. The reason you must delete, or at least move, the stage3 file is that grub tools will think it's kernel. It essentially is, but it does not actually boot anything Gentoo related. Instead, it boots a different kernel with a Lubuntu splash screen and starts LightDM.

The name does not matter. You can name your kernel ohohoo and it will boot if the bootloader calls it. My current kernel is called bzImage and the working backup is called bzImage.pre. Having it setup this way I do not need to edit grub.conf when upgrading. This is about machines that boot with GRUB indeed._________________Please learn how to denote units correctly!

Yes, it is no matter how you kernel was named. Grub will load it anyway. Renaming just helps to distinguish kernels if you have a set of different kernels (for example with different modules sets).
If your grub loads lubuntu kernel, probably you have your grub mis-configured. It looks like you have a lubuntu partition and grub pointed to boot from it instead of booting from gentoo partition.

P.S.
stage3 does not disturb anyone. The reason to remove it is just freeing some extra spaces at your partition. Grub-mkconfig does not reacts to this file.

with the trailing "-1" being a local number. I run "-1" kernels as the default boot kernel, and
"-2" kernels for testing. Once the testing is over, I build the next "-1" kernel with the "-2"
config file.

For me, installing Gentoo was an interesting and frustrating waste of time.

Doesn't really compute. If it was interesting, how can it be a waste of time?
Anyway, good luck with other distros. Gentoo is not for everyone. Many people used Gentoo and then went back to Win, OSX, another Distro or BSD, whatever, because of different reasons. They all seem to have found what they were looking for, so you might as well.

Just don't blame it on Gentoo alone. When I started with Linux I actually wanted Ubuntu, but a friend installed Gentoo for me. Kept it ever since, installed it on my own several times and never had unsolvable trouble since the documentation is really good and people are usually helpful.

Following the Handbook (and not the quick guide, but you linked to the handbook so I guess you used it) usually gives good results, IF you read it and don't just fly from code listing to code listing. The handbook tells you about genkernel, btw. It also contains this precious line: cp arch/x86_64/boot/bzImage /boot/kernel-3.4.9-gentoo.

For me, installing Gentoo was an interesting and frustrating waste of time.

In my first attemp, I could not managed to install gentoo, too. But giving up is not an option in my nature. So, finally I managed to see the gentoo desktop by the help of friends on this forum. And since then, no other distribution is enough for me. Every time I try another distro, I like gentoo more. Gentoo is a distro as you want it to be. Every gentoo is different unlike other binary distros. It is specific to its owner. It is so flexible that, you can make it a server, a gaming machine, a music production workstation, whatever you dream or all of them at once.
So I suggest you do not give up untill you see the gentoo desktop. And that two days will be a wise use of time. You will know if gentoo is good for you or not._________________Anyway it's all the same at the end...
Need help to get it working: "x-fi surround 5.1"

Okay, the question is flippant, but I'm seriously frustrated. I followed the instructions from www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-amd64.xml from chroot. I don't understand where everything was installed. It installs a kernel, but can never find it.

The advice to go back and reinstall the kernel is just too much to take after spending so much time building everything. Perhaps the instructions should say something like, "If this is the first time you have installed Gentoo, use genkernel!" or whatever it's called.

Using one or another method won't make a difference for you. The problem here seems to be that you don't understand the basics of the filesystem structure, and how the mount command works. The kernel is stored in the same way, regardless of the method you use to configure and build it.

Two days for a first installation of Gentoo is not bad, and having to go some steps back at some point to re-do something is not rare either. The last thing you should bring with you when trying Gentoo for first time is "impatience". Just an advise.

Quote:

I now have files mounted under /mnt/gentoo that I cannot unmount using umount outside or inside chroot.

Without the error we can't be sure, but probably some process is using the fs, so you can't umount it. Make sure you close all the shells you might have open in other VTs.

Quote:

I realize that I was not up to the challenge, but I want something beyond Ubuntu. I want up-to-date software with stability.

Ubuntu and Gentoo are probably in opposite sides of the sprectrum. After Gentoo there's only LFS But I don't consider that as a showstopper. I know several newcomers to Linux whose first experience with it has been in Gentoo, and they did quite well, with some help from the forum or the ML._________________Gentoo Handbook | My website

I remember my first install of Gentoo (End of 2003 on a Pentium Pro 233 MMX) took five days until I had a desktop (XFCE if I remember correctly).

But really, installing Gentoo is not a one way ticket. It's part of the learning process. Now, ten years after, I have just build up a Gentoo VM for testing wayland and got a bootable system (Just the console, so no boot disc and chroot are required any more) in under 2 hours. Without genkernel.

i92guboj wrote:

Ubuntu and Gentoo are probably in opposite sides of the sprectrum. After Gentoo there's only LFS

Ah! No. LFS is just a beginners guide for people who are really wanting it hard core. Once you can do LFS on your own, the real thing awaits you: DIY Linux!
But although LFS is fun and a great learning source, DIY is too much for me to just "play around". However, LFS and DIY are very useful if you must get a working system very very small.

LFS Website wrote:

We installed a system that was just enough to run the Apache web server; total disk space usage was approximately 8 MB. With further stripping, that can be brought down to 5 MB or less. Try that with a regular distribution.

Learning is never a waste!_________________Important German:

"Aha" - German reaction to pretend that you are really interested while giving no f*ck.

"Tja" - German reaction to the apocalypse, nuclear war, an alien invasion or no bread in the house.